ent which my heart could desire; and now, on my return from that
wide world, O my friend, how many disappointed hopes and unsuccessful
plans have I brought back!

As I contemplated the mountains which lay stretched out before me, I
thought how often they had been the object of my dearest desires. Here
used I to sit for hours together with my eyes bent upon them, ardently
longing to wander in the shade of those woods, to lose myself in those
valleys, which form so delightful an object in the distance. With what
reluctance did I leave this charming spot; when my hour of recreation
was over, and my leave of absence expired! I drew near to the village:
all the well-known old summerhouses and gardens were recognised again; I
disliked the new ones, and all other alterations which had taken place.
I entered the village, and all my former feelings returned. I cannot,
my dear friend, enter into details, charming as were my sensations:
they would be dull in the narration. I had intended to lodge in the
market-place, near our old house. As soon as I entered, I perceived that
the schoolroom, where our childhood had been taught by that good old
woman, was converted into a shop. I called to mind the sorrow, the
heaviness, the tears, and oppression of heart, which I experienced in
that confinement. Every step produced some particular impression. A
pilgrim in the Holy Land does not meet so many spots pregnant with
tender recollections, and his soul is hardly moved with greater
devotion. One incident will serve for illustration. I followed the
course of a stream to a farm, formerly a delightful walk of mine, and
paused at the spot, where, when boys, we used to amuse ourselves making
ducks and drakes upon the water. I recollected so well how I used
formerly to watch the course of that same stream, following it with
inquiring eagerness, forming romantic ideas of the countries it was to
pass through; but my imagination was soon exhausted: while the
water continued flowing farther and farther on, till my fancy became
bewildered by the contemplation of an invisible distance. Exactly such,
my dear friend, so happy and so confined, were the thoughts of our good
ancestors. Their feelings and their poetry were fresh as childhood.
And, when Ulysses talks of the immeasurable sea and boundless earth,
his epithets are true, natural, deeply felt, and mysterious. Of what
importance is it that I have learned, with every schoolboy, that the
world is rou